Course Description: The course focuses on the exploration of the human body using drawing as a formal and conceptual tool. Through a practice led approach students will have the opportunity to develop a three-dimensional understanding of anatomy and body structure by engaging with a wide range of materials, techniques and processes including cut-outs, wood-cut printmaking, stenciling, tracing & enlarging.
The course encourages students to think of observation based drawings as a process of dialogue between the physical and the visceral by working through a series of processes that reveal the transformation of the image at each stage. It values not just accuracy and attention to detail, but also the emphasis on developing a personal vocabulary by bringing in socio-anthropological layers of association with the body.
The course aims at presenting a wide angle perspective to figurative drawing with a focus on subjective visual explorations. It seeks to offer an insight into artistic practices wherein the human figure plays a pivotal role in communicating ideas, philosophies and experiences related to diverse socio-political, historical references. It is envisaged to familiarize students with skills and techniques that enable them to connect concepts, processes and materials into a concise whole through a hands-on approach.
Rethinking body beyond a representational image, as an entity with constant trans-mutative possibilities in terms of form, functionality and aesthetics. Probing the ideas of beauty, identity, sexuality, and gender and space-time memory in the context of the body and the human figure. Reflecting on overlapping, erasure and incision as acts layered with emotive and intuitive sensibilities.
Learning outcomes
- An understanding of drawing as a visual language with multi-dimensional possibilities.
- Experience of working with a range of drawing mediums and techniques.
- An insight into processes that enable the translation of concepts/ideas/emotions into visual forms.
- Motivation to realize that visuals play a strong role in everyday communication.
anni.kumari@ashoka.edu.in